Here are this year's nominated films, listed from most-nominated to least-nominated, with the films I have not yet seen in italics (not counting the shorts, all 15 of which have been nominated once each):

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front -- Documentary feature

In Darkness -- Foreign language film

Jane Eyre -- Costume design

Kung Fu Panda 2 -- Animated feature

Margin Call -- Original screenplay

Monsieur Lazhar -- Foreign language film

The Muppets -- Original song

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory -- Documentary feature

Pina -- Documentary feature

Puss in Boots -- Animated feature

Rango -- Animated feature

Real Steel -- Visual effects

Rio -- Original song

Rise of the Planet of the Apes -- Visual effects

Undefeated -- Documentary feature

Warrior -- Supporting actor (Nick Nolte)

W.E. -- Costume design

Stats and trivia to come.

FWIW, of the thirteen films I have not yet seen, I have already "rented" one of them via YouTube Movies but haven't pressed play yet (i.e. Margin Call), another one is available for the "renting" if I want (i.e. Jane Eyre), one of them I actually have on DVD but haven't watched yet (i.e. Undefeated), one has its local press screening today (i.e. Albert Nobbs), one is playing in local theatres right now (i.e. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close), and at least one or two more are due to come here in the next few weeks. Don't know about the others.

I’m actually not as disappointed with today’s nominations as I thought I’d be. I thought Tree of Life would be shut out completely, so the fact that it earned a nod for best pic, director, and cinematography is itself a reason to celebrate. I’m also glad to see that War Horse, Midnight in Paris, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close got nominated (I’m in a very slim minority on that last one). Hugo was great in so many ways, but I never really connected with the character of Hugo—or at least not as well as I wanted to. I feel pretty apathetic about The Artist and The Descendants. Moneyball and The Help, meanwhile, are the only two of the nine that I haven’t seen and I may or may not catch up with them. Of the two, Moneyball is the one I’d be most likely to see.

If I'm disappointed about anything, it's that there wasn't more love for Tinker Tailor, Young Adult, Win Win, or Drive.

I'm happy that The Tree of Life and Malick got nominated. Of course, most of the other movies I thought were worthy weren't. And there are films that don't belong (The Help for Best Picture, really). Still, not as bad as I thought it would be.

They got two of the 10 Best Films right ... but where are OF GODS AND MEN and MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE and MELANCHOLIA #ducks #theyllmakeupforitwithTURINHORSEnextyearImsure

Yeah, Melancholia is a major omission. As are: Beginners, Win Win, and Take Shelter. I'm pretty sure Of Gods and Men qualified for 2010, which is also true for Certified Copy (which also should have been nominated last year).

I think Of Gods and Men could have qualified this year. It only played festivals in 2010, and had a limited U.S. release in 2011. Certified Copy, same thing.

It was France's submission for foreign language film last year, but was ignored. I think that allowed it to be considered for non-foreign language categories this year. But that is really the hard way to get a nomination.

Note: Only three Best Picture nominees have also been nominated for Best Director and Best Film Editing:

The Artist

The Descendants

Hugo

It has been over 20 years since a film won Best Picture without at least being NOMINATED for Best Director (not since 1989's Driving Miss Daisy), and it has been over 30 years since a film won Best Picture without at least being NOMINATED for Best Film Editing (not since 1980's Ordinary People). So odds are this year's Best Picture winner will be one of the three nominees listed above.

Also worth noting: This is the first time EVER that Disney has failed to get a single nominee in the Best Animated Feature category (even in 2006, when there were no Pixar films and Disney's big release of the year failed to get nominated, they still got a nomination for Howl's Moving Castle).

Darrel Manson wrote:: It was France's submission for foreign language film last year, but was ignored. I think that allowed it to be considered for non-foreign language categories this year.

I don't think you have to be ignored in order to qualify for a non-foreign nomination the following year. I know it happened at least once, in the '70s I think, where a film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film one year and then it was nominated in other categories the following year.

Basically, to be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category, you have to be selected by a foreign country. (Incidentally, would Certified Copy have qualified for this award? So much of its dialogue was in English. Which nation would have claimed it as their nominee?) But to be nominated in any of the OTHER categories, you have to play for a week in Los Angeles (and maybe New York) during the year in which you are nominated. So if a foreign country picks your film one year but it doesn't play in Los Angeles until the following year, then you would be eligible for Best Foreign Language Film one year and eligible for all the other awards the following year.

I think Of Gods and Men could have qualified this year. It only played festivals in 2010, and had a limited U.S. release in 2011. Certified Copy, same thing.

It was France's submission for foreign language film last year, but was ignored. I think that allowed it to be considered for non-foreign language categories this year. But that is really the hard way to get a nomination.

Actually that has it backwards. Because OF GODS AND MEN was submitted but NOT nominated, it was eligible this year based on its US theatrical release. Had it been nominated, it would not have been eligible this year, but would have been so last year. Here is the Academy.

# ELIGIBILITY IN OTHER CATEGORIES 1. Motion pictures submitted for Foreign Language Film award consideration may also qualify for the 84th Annual Academy Awards in other categories, provided they comply with the rules governing those categories. 2. In order to qualify for other categories, the motion pictures must be publicly exhibited by means of 35mm or 70mm film or in the digital format specified in Paragraph II.A above for paid admission (previews excluded) in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County, for a run of at least seven consecutive days, beginning between January 1, 2011, and midnight of December 31, 2011. 3. Motion pictures nominated for the Foreign Language Film award shall not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration in any category in any subsequent Awards year. Submitted pictures that are not nominated for the Foreign Language Film award are eligible for Awards consideration in other categories in the subsequent year, provided the pictures begin their seven-day qualifying run in Los Angeles County during that calendar year.

And BTW ... my cynicism obviously didn't come through in my above post. While I absolutely love all those titles I mentioned (all will be in my Top 10), I would have been stunned if any had been in the Best Picture race. I no longer even had any hope for Dunst or Olsen getting (deserved) Best Actress nods for MELANCHOLIA or MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE.

3. Motion pictures nominated for the Foreign Language Film award shall not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration in any category in any subsequent Awards year. Submitted pictures that are not nominated for the Foreign Language Film award are eligible for Awards consideration in other categories in the subsequent year, provided the pictures begin their seven-day qualifying run in Los Angeles County during that calendar year.

Oh, that must be a more recent development. (More recent than the '70s, that is.)

I wonder if they've also changed the rule that allowed Charlie Chaplin to win an Oscar in the '70s for a film he made in the '50s (but didn't release in the U.S. until the '70s).

Remember how the Best Picture category was expanded from five nominees to up-to-ten nominees, ostensibly to allow for more "popular" nominees? Well, while there were 29 films this year that grossed over $100 million, only one of them ranks among the nine Best Picture nominees, namely The Help. And there are two more nominees that have passed $70 million: Moneyball and War Horse. And three more that have passed $50 million: Midnight in Paris, Hugo and The Descendants. And the three remaining nominees -- The Tree of Life, The Artist and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close -- have barely crossed the $10 million line (though the latter two films, which are still in theatres, will no doubt get a boost from today's nominations).

To put this another way: if you averaged the box-office take of all nine Best Picture nominees, you would get just $57.6 million at this point. But if you averaged the box-office take of the five Best Animated Feature nominees -- two of which haven't even been released in North America yet, thus giving them box-office hauls of zero -- you would still get an average of $87.3 million.

3. Motion pictures nominated for the Foreign Language Film award shall not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration in any category in any subsequent Awards year. Submitted pictures that are not nominated for the Foreign Language Film award are eligible for Awards consideration in other categories in the subsequent year, provided the pictures begin their seven-day qualifying run in Los Angeles County during that calendar year.

Oh, that must be a more recent development. (More recent than the '70s, that is.)

I wonder if they've also changed the rule that allowed Charlie Chaplin to win an Oscar in the '70s for a film he made in the '50s (but didn't release in the U.S. until the '70s).

Yep ... they now have a two-year-rule (there are some further caveats for foreign-releases, but that's the gist of it). If a film had a commercial release anywhere prior to (for this year), Jan. 1, 2010, it's ineligible.

# A motion picture first theatrically exhibited inside the U.S. prior to the Los Angeles County qualifying run shall be eligible for submission provided the prior exhibition takes place in a commercial motion picture theater after January 1, 2010, and that no other form of public exhibition occurs through the completion of its Los Angeles County qualifying run (previews and festivals excluded).# A picture first theatrically exhibited outside the U.S. prior to the Los Angeles County qualifying run shall be eligible for submission provided the prior exhibition takes place in a commercial motion picture theater after January 1, 2010, with the following further conditions:

1. the film may not be exhibited publicly in any nontheatrical form for a 90-day period following the commencement of its initial theatrical engagement, and 2. after the 90-day period, the film may play in nontheatrical forms provided they are outside the U.S. (No film that is shown inside the U.S. in any nontheatrical form prior to its Los Angeles County qualifying run shall be eligible for Academy Awards.)

That doesn't cover, of course, a situation like MARGARET, where the film sat on the shelf unviewed for five years.

It's bizarre, but it seems to me that, with a few exceptions here and there, the Academy is putting itself in this weird position of rejecting BOTH the popular box-office hits AND the critical darlings. What the consequences might be for our understanding of an "Oscar-calibre film", I'm not sure, but they're probably not that good.

The average age of the five nominees for Best Director — Michel Hazanavicius, Alexander Payne, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and Terrence Malick — is 61, an all-time high. That’s one record the Academy probably didn’t want to set, and indicates that despite the surprisingly diverse slate of Best Picture nominees, this may go down in the books as a year in which voters turned to the past, both in terms of movies and the people who made them.

[ snip ]

Meryl Streep picked up her 17th nomination today, a record for any performer. John Williams is up for Best Original Score for both The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse — those nominations, his 46th and 47th, extend his run as the most-nominated living person in any category. . . . With his 22nd and 23rd nominations (for writing and directing Midnight in Paris, his first Best Picture nominee in 25 years), Woody Allen breaks out of a tie with Billy Wilder as Oscar’s most nominated writer-director. . . . Best Supporting Actor nominee Kenneth Branagh now has five nominations in five different categories (he's previously been up for Actor, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Live-Action Short). Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, recognized for Bridesmaids, become the first female team in the Best Original Screenplay category since Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen wrote Silkwood 28 years ago. And the nominations for the silent (give or take a word) work of von Sydow and The Artist’s Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo mark the first time that three silent performances have been recognized since either the first or second Oscars.

The Artist becomes just the fifth predominately or entirely silent film to score a best picture nomination and the first in 83 years, following in the footsteps of Wings (1927/1928, won), The Racket (1927/1928), Seventh Heaven (1927/1928) and The Patriot (1928/1929).

The Artist becomes just the seventh predominately or entirely black-and-white film since 1970 to score a best picture nomination, following The Last Picture Show (1971), Lenny (1974), The Elephant Man (1980), Raging Bull (1980), Schindler's List (1993, won) and Good Night, and Good Luck (2005).

Hugo becomes just the fourth film released in 3D to score a best picture nomination, after Avatar (2009), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010), and could become the first to win.

[ snip ]

With the best picture nomination for War Horse, Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg move into sole (or dual) possession of the record for most best picture nominations for a producer with seven, passing Stanley Kramer.

[ snip ]

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) becomes just the eighth native of France to score a best director nomination, following Jean Renoir for The Southerner (1945), Claud Lelouch for A Man and a Woman (1966), Roman Polanski for Chinatown (1974), Tess (1980) and The Pianist (2002, won), Francois Truffaut for Day for Night (1974), Edouard Molinaro for La Cage aux Folles (1979), Louis Malle for Atlantic City (1981) and Barbet Schroeder for Reversal of Fortune (1990).

[ snip ]

Only three films have won best picture without their directors also being nominated: Wings (1927/1928), Grand Hotel (1931/1932), and Driving Miss Daisy (1989). That does not bode well for the best picture prospects of: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Moneyball or War Horse.

Only 11 films have won best picture without scoring at least one acting nomination, including only three in the past 20 years: Wings (1927/1928), All Quiet on the Western Front (1929/1930), Grand Hotel (1931/1932), An American in Paris (1951), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), Gigi (1958), The Last Emperor (1987), Braveheart (1995), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008). That is good news for the best picture prospects of The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, and Moneyball and bad news for the best picture prospects of Hugo, Midnight in Paris, The Tree of Life and War Horse.

[ snip ]

Jean Dujardin (The Artist) becomes just the third native of France to score a best actor nomination, following in the footsteps of Maurice Chevalier for The Big Pond (1929) and The Love Parade (1930), Charles Boyer for Fanny (1961) and Gerard Depardieu for Cyrano de Bergerac (1990).

[ snip ]

Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) and Christopher Plummer (Beginners), both 82, become the second- and fourth-oldest people, respectively, to score supporting actor nominations. The oldest was Hal Holbrook, who was also 82 but a few months older when he was nominated for Into the Wild (2007). Plummer trails both von Sydow and Ralph Richardson, who was a few days older when he was nominated for Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). Von Sydow or Plummer could become the oldest person to win a competitive acting Oscar in history, surpassing two 80-year-olds: George Burns, who won best supporting actor for The Sunshine Boys (1975), and Jessica Tandy, who won best actress for Driving Miss Daisy (1989).

[ snip ]

Categories for story and/or screenplay have existed for all 83 years of Oscar history. In the past 56 years, only two films have won best picture without also being nominated for one of them -- The Sound of Music (1965) and Titanic (1997) 14 years ago. That is good news for the best picture prospects of The Artist, The Descendants, Hugo, Midnight in Paris and Moneyball and very bad news for the best picture prospects of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, The Tree of Life and War Horse.

Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), with his best original screenplay nomination, extends his record for most nominations by a screenwriter. (All 15 of his have come in the original screenplay category. If he wins, he will become the first person to have won the category three times. He last won 25 years ago for Hannah and Her Sisters.)

[ snip ]

The Artist, which was lensed by Guillaume Schiffman, becomes just the 10th predominately or entirely black-and-white film to score a best cinematography nom since the elimination of the black-and-white cinematography category in 1967. The others: In Cold Blood (1967), The Last Picture Show (1971), Lenny (1974), Raging Bull (1980), Zelig (1983), Schindler's List (1993, won), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) and The White Ribbon (2009).

[ snip ]

Thelma Schoonmaker (Hugo), who scored a best film editing nomination, could move into sole possession of the record for most wins with a fourth.

John Williams (The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse) scores his 41st and 42nd nominations for best original score. He now trails the late Alfred Newman by just one in the film category. (Williams has 47 overall nominations, the second most for an individual in Oscar history, trailing only Walt Disney.)

Greg Russell (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) scores his 15th nomination for best sound mixing and is seeking his first win. (Russell now moves into sole possession of second place for most nominations without a win, passing the late Loren L. Ryder and trailing only Russell's former sound mixing partner Kevin O'Connell, who is 0-for-20.)

Meanwhile, Steve Zeitchik @ Los Angeles Times notes that TWO of this year's Best Director nominees -- Woody Allen and Terrence Malick -- are notoriously not-inclined to turn up for events like the Oscars (I think Woody's done it once, for the New York tribute at the first post-9/11 show, but never for any of his nominations). I don't think anyone expects either Woody or Malick to actually win this year's award, but still, how often have there been TWO no-shows in this category?

And The Playlist notes that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is now "the worst-reviewed film to gain a Best Picture nomination (according to Rotten Tomatoes)."

I've seen more films this past 3 months in theatres than I had in the previous five years. I thought I was doing well in what I chose to see, but in the end I still have 8 films to see just to catch up on Best Picture nominees - 3 off the Best Picture list - and all 5 full length animation nominees.